


The Perfect Places Of Sleep

by anarmydoctor



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-30
Updated: 2011-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarmydoctor/pseuds/anarmydoctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John dreams of Sherlock. Sherlock dreams of John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Perfect Places Of Sleep

_But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,  
And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart  
—Open to me!  
For I will show you the places Nobody knows,  
And, if you like,  
The perfect places of Sleep._

e.e.cummings

 

 

 

John is dreaming of Sherlock. In his dream, Sherlock is a horse. A race horse. A stunning, strong, heavy horse. He is sweating; he huffs and looks at John with fury, with arrogance.

                                      Waiting.  
                                      Wa _n_ ting.

John rests his left hand on Sherlock’s head. His hair is dark and silky, it doesn’t feel like horsehair at all. John’s hand doesn’t shake. His hand is steady. His hand _wants_ , is starving of the touch. He strokes that mighty, muscular neck, and feels the fast beat of the animal on his palm. John can feel it through his own body, like a rhythmical buzzing. Drumming, vibrating, the sound

                                                                                                                                     becoming  
                                                                                                                                                liquid,

                                                                                                                                                                     thick.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                      Intoxicating.

The horse’s skin, Sherlock’s skin, is now the skin of a drum, a wall of endless membrane, tanned by bruises and scars. John runs them with his fingertips. There is something electric, dangerous, exciting, in each knot of tissue, in those wrung fibres, in those imperfections. John brings his other hand to the membrane, touching with both hands that vibrant surface, and feels a

                           lash

of energy;

      feels the bolt through his entire body.

He can feel the drum skin reacting to his attentions,  
hum  
m  
m  
m  
m  
m  
ming under his touch.

  
So John takes a step forward ( _John is barefoot_ ) and presses his body ( _John is naked_ ) against the leather, from his feet to his forehead, skin against skin; and that endless tissue takes him, dresses him, wraps him. Because Sherlock is then a hung sheet, drying under the sun of the desert. He becomes light, playful, tickling all across John’s flushed skin, almost burning. But in that

 _almost_

 __

lies the addictive pleasure, and John succumbs to the embrace. Slowly, smoothly, the sheet begins to feel heavy, acquires a shape, a blunt weight that’s pressing insistently against John’s body. There’s something behind the sheet, pushing. John pulls the sheet away.  
                            (John is not afraid)

                                      (John is not cold,

                                       not thirsty,

                                       not hungry,

                                       he’s not sleepy,

                                       John is just  
 _wanting_ )

And again, the horse is there. Sherlock, behind the sheet, before the sun, in his most breathtaking, wildest form, looking down at him. John smiles. It’s weird to smile at a horse. It’s weird to smile in a dream. John smiles, anyway. He brings two fingers to his smile, put his fingers into his own mouth, and  
          u n w  i   n     d       s,

                              from under his tongue, a word.  
It’s a long word, untranslatable out of the dream, out of the desert, but a wordwhich means something like

 _Take me far away Take me far away from the desert Take me to the sea Take me to the water and the salt Take me with you wherever you go Don’t leave me behind Take me always with you, Sherlock Take me with you My heart doesn’t belong to the desert My heart belongs to you My heart will ride with you My heart At full gallop From the sand to the salt With you But Sherlock please don’t leave me behind Don’t leave me alone Don’t leave me without you_.

John holds the word between his fingers, and the word is then a sugar lump, which he brings to the horse’s mouth. Sherlock tilts his head and licks the word with his rough and pink tongue, until it’s gone, until he’s just licking John’s fingers; and for six seconds, only six, that’s Sherlock, utterly Sherlock, his mouth, his eyes; Sherlock’s tongue. And John shudders, closes his eyes and counts the seconds  
(one,

           two,

                     three,

                                 four,

                                            five,

                                                      six), and when he opens his eyes again,

                                                                                                                   he’s awake.

He’s in his lonely bed. Alone.

John stares at the ceiling. His mouth is dry. He’s achingly hard. He tastes his fingers, but they don’t taste sweet, they don’t taste like the sand or like the sea; they don’t taste likeJohn dreams that Sherlock has to taste. John sighs. A long sigh. He has never had a dream like that. John is afraid. His heart is galloping in his chest.

Galloping.

And then, he remembers. Then, he knows.

He is cold, he is thirsty, he is hungry, he is sleepy. But (and it’s the only thing that matters, and it’s the _certainty_ that makes him jump out of the bed and go downstairs) he knows now that his heart doesn’t belong to the desert anymore.

 

 

 

 

Sherlock is dreaming of John. In his dream, John is John.

               Inch  
               by    
               inch.

Exactly John.Precisely John. The picture is vivid and perfect. John’s smell. The pace of John’s heart **.** The exact weight of John in the morning. The picture is perfect, and Sherlock delights in it. He leaves it like that, apparently static, like the

                                                                                                                                         Universe.

It seems frozen but it’s moving. So fast. Too fast. Not fast enough. Errors of perception. But there are no errors in his dream. Sherlock’s mind is open and greedy for John; it takes all of him. Sherlock takes so much of John it almost hurts. It’s almost too much. But Sherlock knows how to control the pain; and he knows how to absorb the data, how to tame it, how to own it,  
                                                                                  how to own

 _him_.

He has the science by his side, and he knows the language of the maths that is the language of Sherlock’s dreams. In his dream, a formula can give him the

key

                           to  
                                John, the answer to John, can _give him  
_                                                                                           J  
                                                                                         o  
                                                                                         h  
                                                                                         n. _  
_

  
In his dream, John is sitting in his armchair, and Sherlock is observing him, formulating him. It’s exhilarating. So much it almost hurts. But it’s in the

 _almost_

 __

wherein lies the formula for a truth that Sherlock knows is certain; because it is a truth that is made bythe infallibility of maths. John is holding a cup of tea in his hands, and Sherlock feels ( _neat, precise, certain_ ) that

                                          heat

in the palm of his own hands. So clearly that he could determinate the exact temperature of the water; and the number of seconds John will wait to drink it. Six seconds. Sherlock closes his eyes and count them  
(one,

           two,

                     three,

                                 four,

                                            five,

                                                      six), and when he opens his eyes again,

                                                                                                                   he’s awake.

He’s in his lonely bed. Alone.

He’s not cold, he’s not thirsty, he’s not hungry, he’s not sleepy. But he is _wanting_. The palms of his hands are cold but his entire body is burning. He has never had a dream like that.

He shuts his eyes and tries to go back to the dream, tries to recover it, tries to fish it from oblivion, as if that slippery dream was shining in a wave that the sea was claiming back to its depths. The measurements, the colours, John’s precise shape, all are gone. Intangible.

Irreducible.

Sherlock sighs. A long sigh. He stares at the ceiling and frowns. And suddenly, he remembers. He knows.

The formula. That’s why he made the formula. Because he needed to remember the dream. Because he needed, he _wanted_ to remember the _certainty_. It’s the only thing that remains of his dream. But it’s enough. And that’s what makes Sherlock jump out of his bed, open his bedroom door just in time to hear John’s determined steps, coming downstairs.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I love e.e.cummings poems. I love talking and writing about dreams. And I really really love Sherlock and John. So I had to write this. Thanks to Alex for her encouragement, and thanks to Sophie, again, always, my amazing, wonderful beta. I don't know what I'd do withouth you.


End file.
